ForgottenWarbird.com

I began this web site a few years ago after my dad gave me some of his mementoes and memoirs from the Korean War. My intentions were to share info that I have to anyone doing research or just wanting to know more. The name of the site is in reference to the Korean Wan being called the Forgotten War. Not everyone knew it was call that while the war was on. It had been only five years since the end of World War II, and people were tired of war. I have heard from a couple ladies whose father and grandfather were in the same squadron and group of gunners. The former had passed away not long after the war, and the latter was still alive. My dad, Arnold Leo Murphy, passed away a few months ago at age 83. While Mom was going through his things, she found a gave me more pictures, another silk map, and more. I have not added those yet but will soon

 I knew he had been in the Air Force as I was about 10 when he retired. He never spoke much about Korea or the war though until many years later. I had found some pictures of bombings and such, but had no idea where they were taken or where they came from. It was around 1980 when he started talking about it and everything he said made me more curious. He told me more about it and finally gave me a lot of pictures and other items. I have had his flight jacket since I was in high school, but it's a little too small for me now and showing its age.

The Question Mark was the plane my dad flew most of his missions in during the early days of the Korean War. He was a sergeant in the 730th Squadron, 452nd Bomber Wing, 5th Air Force and among the first airmen sent to Korea when the war broke out. The plane was a Douglas B-26B Invader medium bomber/attack aircraft. It was originally designated A-26 when it first appeared late in WWII. When the Martin B-26 Marauder was decommissioned in the late 1940s the Douglas A-26 was re-designated as the B-26. The Invader was one of the few planes to fly combat missions in WWII, Korea and Vietnam.

This version of the plane was powered by two Pratt and Whitney 2,000hp radial piston engines and had a three man crew: pilot, navigator/bombardier and gunner. Instead of a glass nose for the bombardier, the Question Mark had a hard nose with eight .50 caliber machine guns in it, and three more were in each wing. There was also a dorsal turret with twin .50s making a total of sixteen. (Some versions had a ventral turret with two more .50s.)  4,000 pounds of bombs were carried in the bomb bay, and a 750 pound napalm bomb and up to seven rockets were carried under each wing. The machine guns were loaded with 5,000 rounds of armor piercing incendiary ammo, according to Dad.

My dad flew 68 combat missions as the gunner. They were supposed to rotate home after 50 missions, but a snafu kept him in action longer. He controlled the twin .50 caliber machine guns in the turret with one of the new remote control device used by the US Air Force. His compartment was just aft of the bomb bay. The dorsal turret had a 360 degree swing. He aimed by viewing through a periscope type device. When he rotated it, the guns in the turret followed. Since they didn't have the lower turret, they could carry and extra 200 gallons of fuel in a bladder tank.

I was always curious about how the plane became called the question Mark, and Dad told me the story of that just earlier this year. The pilot, D. D, Johnson, knew the plane thoroughly. He was in charge of checking out new pilots because of that. But he also wanted a plane that wouldn't fall apart on him while on a mission. The first 4 or 5 missions for them were scrubbed due to the fact that he had to sign off on the plane being air worthy. On those missions, he did not sign off and instead called its condition "questionable". After the fifth time, someone had painted a question mark on the nose!